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November 21, 2020 8:12 AM

The journalist Ellie Shechet is the author of the substack newsletter Horrible Lists.

via The Substackerati. Some highlights:

Real names of beetles

Deathwatch beetle
Pleasing fungus beetle
Predaceous diving beetle
Twice-stabbed lady beetle

Ways the world could in fact be worse

Instead of squirrels we have lions. There are just too many lions. It's hard to go outside, and if you're not a fast runner too bad

All the birds suddenly start singing jaunty tunes in human words about how scary cancer is and how many things might cause cancer

Donald Trump's eyeballs fall out during the State of the Union, and Sarah Sanders is like no they didn't, and Jeanine Pirro is like wow the FBI will do anything to harm this president, and Tucker Carlson is like it's absurd that the far-Left media is paying attention to Trump's eyes falling out considering Venezuela, and then about a third of the country decides it's actually a genius power move to rip out one's own eyes, but they keep getting into fatal car accidents and knocking things over and there are squished eyeballs everywhere [Ed note: written in March 2019]

Things I cannot remember

The name of any band if you ask me what music I like
What I did between 2012-2014
Which plastics are recyclable
What a paraben is
The rest of a dream I had last night where I was hanging out with a four-year-old human boy who was, at the same time, a bug

Ways to tell people you are going to graduate school

Tell everyone, vaguely, that you will be spending much of your time "uptown" this fall. When asked to specify what is happening uptown, reply sharply: "What the hell do you think is happening uptown, Andrea?"

At a friend's 30th birthday party, casually faint. As everyone flutters around you, the air ripe with concern, gently come to. "It must be the stress of... almost being in graduate school," whisper hoarsely.

Stick your face very close to your cat or dog's face. Grab their furry cheeks. Say, trembling: "I'm going to learn for you. Mark my words."

What is "chirality"?

Planets being nice to each other
It's when a volcano suddenly turns inward and becomes a great big hole
A pretty specific and complex strain of rality
The term for when humanity established a direct line of communication with goblins in 1974

Spells I've tried to heal my nose rash in addition to antibiotic ointment

2.
Hark you tiny bacteria or whatever
I see you
Not literally but
I acknowledge you

Times it's important to apologize

When you are reading a printout of medieval Jewish gynecological texts for class while standing on the subway, and the printout keeps flopping onto a woman's head because you're also holding a canned organic oat milk latte and it's hard to hold both things, and she makes an expression like you have just peed on her

Some fun ideas from the Middle Ages for staying healthy

"As a remedy for insomnia, induce a louse captured on the patient's head to crawl into a hollow bone, seal the bone, and hang about the patient's neck."

Possible opening lines from a YA novel narrated by a plant pathogen

Why do parents always have to ruin everything? For once in my life, I was feeling optimistic. It was a Friday afternoon in September, and the future was looking pretty good, for microbes, at least. I got an A in my jazz trumpet class, infected 3 new trees, and Blorbia, the new girl from San Diego, told me she heard I was good at making out.

Mouse pads you can buy

Corgi Butts Drive Me Nuts Corgi Mousepad
Stick Figure Ergonomic Titty Mouse

What podcast episode synopses sound like sometimes

Angela Drawine hates people. But her job, at a human cloning factory, required her to make even more people. So one day she decided to do something a little out-there, and we won’t say it for 35 minutes.

Caller Ashley Lewis can’t find her math notebook from 7th grade. The search took us all the way down to an unmarked grave in Patagonia.

Other good names for a landscaping company since Four Seasons Total Landscaping is taken

Fricking Plants, Inc.
100 Percent Living Plants
Definitely Plants 5000
Dirt Sun Air Pesticides By Ellie

posted by medusa (15 comments total)

Donald Trump's eyeballs fall out during the State of the Union, and Sarah Sanders is like no they didn't, and Jeanine Pirro is like wow the FBI will do anything to harm this president, and Tucker Carlson is like it's absurd that the far-Left media is paying attention to Trump's eyes falling out considering Venezuela, and then about a third of the country decides it's actually a genius power move to rip out one's own eyes, but they keep getting into fatal car accidents and knocking things over and there are squished eyeballs everywhere

Pretty sure this has actually happened. Probably within the last two weeks.
posted by soundguy99 at 9:29 AM on November 21, 2020 [4 favorites]

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newslet

I think you ran into the character limit but I am very taken with the word "newslet", it sounds like an adorable little piece of information, way better than a "fleet"
posted by saturday_morning at 9:44 AM on November 21, 2020 [17 favorites]

From Times it's important to apologize:

When you have walked past someone on the street, and have in fact done nothing besides walk past them, but still, sorry needs to be said.

I'm liking how she thinks.
posted by Wilbefort at 10:51 AM on November 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

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posted by bartleby at 10:59 AM on November 21, 2020 [4 favorites]

Metafilter: A Treasury of Poorly Understood Ideas
posted by medusa at 11:10 AM on November 21, 2020 [6 favorites]

I think you ran into the character limit but I am very taken with the word "newslet", it sounds like an adorable little piece of information, way better than a "fleet"

The Metafilter title bar is better at marketing than twitter is.
posted by medusa at 11:11 AM on November 21, 2020 [3 favorites]

medusa: "The Metafilter title bar is better at marketing than twitter is."

MetaFlitter
posted by chavenet at 11:19 AM on November 21, 2020 [2 favorites]

This is great, but the idea of thousands of Bill Mahers out there is really terrifying. Having one aging, unfunny actor with a terrible show that regularly platforms horrible people really is enough, even for this timeline.
posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 11:33 AM on November 21, 2020 [2 favorites]

Thank you for this! I listen to a lot of podcasts so I read a lot of podcast descriptions and her list of those is eerily accurate.

Reminds me of both The Toast and Brunching Shuttlecocks. This is a good thing in my books.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:17 PM on November 21, 2020 [2 favorites]

Real names of beetles

Deathwatch beetle
Pleasing fungus beetle
Predaceous diving beetle
Twice-stabbed lady beetle

Ringo
George
Paul
John
posted by hippybear at 12:56 PM on November 21, 2020 [7 favorites]

Newslet reminds me of washlet, which I didn't hear in the wild (in the USA, at least) all that often until recently. One more unexpected outcome of 2020 I guess.
posted by pagrus at 1:43 PM on November 21, 2020

Also from Possible opening lines from a YA novel narrated by a plant pathogen:

"I always thought that falling in love would feel like floating on a cloud, or smoking a cigarette while crying and being gently carried down a beach during war, or something. No one ever told me it would be like this—terrible, fast, a great HORK and SPLOP as I shriek feed, feed, my darlings! But I’m getting ahead of myself."
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:48 PM on November 21, 2020

Puts me in mind of a less wistful, even more surreal version of Listing to Port
posted by entity447b at 3:37 AM on November 22, 2020 [1 favorite]

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newslet

I blame Gary Busey's overbite.
posted by y2karl at 7:25 AM on November 22, 2020

Marriage for One is very in right now
posted by emjaybee at 12:26 PM on November 22, 2020